Fired Stars and Stripes journalists sue Pentagon leaders

Three fired Stars and Stripes journalists sued Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and other Pentagon officials in federal court Thursday, alleging the Trump administration is illegally trying to remove them as part of what they called “extraordinary censorship efforts” against the military news outlet.

The plaintiffs — former publisher Max Lederer, editor-in-chief Erik Slavin and reporter Lara Korte — received separation notices last week that cited insubordination. Their lawsuit names Hegseth, Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell and aide Andrew Brey as defendants.

The journalists say they were targeted for “speaking up as private citizens in support of the press’s freedom to cover military operations” and in retaliation for Stars and Stripes’ reporting on deteriorating conditions aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier during an extended deployment in the Middle East.

“This action seeks to prevent the blatant violation of the First Amendment rights of these journalists and challenges the U.S. Department of Defense’s extraordinary censorship efforts in violation of both the First Amendment and DoD regulations and policies,” the lawsuit says.

Slavin and Korte said the insubordination allegation stemmed from interviews they gave to CBS News for a “CBS Sunday Morning” segment that aired July 5. In that report, Korte said she worked for Stars and Stripes, “not for the Pentagon, not for any administration, not for any policymaker.”

According to the complaint, Pentagon officials did not take immediate action after the interview. The lawsuit says the statements supporting Stars and Stripes’ editorial independence were “entirely consistent with DoD’s own longstanding insistence on Stripes’ independence.”

More than a month later, on Aug. 11, Stars and Stripes published a report on conditions aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln, which had been deployed for nearly nine months. The complaint says the article reported that the carrier’s 5,000 sailors had endured food and water shortages, disrupted mail service, long workdays and little time off, with the deployment and physical hardships affecting their physical and mental health.

The next day, the lawsuit says, the defendants ordered Lederer to deliver separation notices to Slavin and Korte. The notices cited the CBS News interviews from five and a half weeks earlier, according to the complaint.

Lederer refused to deliver them. Instead, he told Stars and Stripes staff by email that he intended to retire at the end of September, saying he did not want to participate in what the lawsuit describes as a scheme to punish Slavin and Korte for exercising their First Amendment rights. The Pentagon fired Lederer before his retirement date, according to CBS News and The Guardian.

The complaint says the three journalists are “facing imminent retaliation and termination in violation of their First Amendment and statutory rights.” Lederer also said the Pentagon had installed a new deputy publisher, an active-duty service member, beneath him at the newspaper without his prior knowledge, The Guardian reported.

Stars and Stripes, first published during the Civil War, has long described itself as editorially independent from military command. The lawsuit calls it “the U.S. military’s independent news source since the Civil War with a long history of editorial independence, free from news management or censorship by military command.”

CBS News reported that roughly half of the newspaper’s $29 million annual budget comes from taxpayers, citing a person familiar with its operations. The outlet also reported that an average of 1.4 million people see Stars and Stripes each day, while its overseas print editions reach service members in remote areas where internet access can be unreliable.

Earlier this year, Parnell said the Defense Department would make broad changes to the publication, saying it would “modernize its operations, refocus its content away from woke distractions that syphon morale, and adapt it to serve a new generation of service members.” The Pentagon later sought to stop Stars and Stripes from running syndicated wire-service articles, Slavin has said.

After the firings, Stars and Stripes published an open letter from Navy Capt. William Urban, who said he had been selected as military deputy to the publisher. Urban wrote that his priorities included producing “the highest quality of editorially independent reporting,” modernizing the outlet and increasing advertising revenue.

The Pentagon did not immediately respond to requests for comment from CBS News and The Guardian.